“Hey Google, what is voice SEO?”
Imagine you’re driving through an unfamiliar city and your gas tank or battery is about to run out. You don’t have the time or space to pull over and park, so you turn to voice-controlled search engine optimization—or voice SEO—for help. Using voice assistants like Google Assistant or Siri, you can search for specific information hands-free, safely, and quickly.
With your voice, you activate the search engine on your cell phone—which is connected to your car— and ask your question. You immediately receive your answer and decide to set a new route to the nearest gas station or charging station. Handy! Right?
But how do you ensure that the search engine provides your company’s location or details in response to a voice search query? Enter voice SEO. We’ll take you on a journey through the wonderful world of voice search. Join us and discover how voice SEO actually works, how you can capitalize on this trend, and what the potential pitfalls are.
Before you decide to incorporate new SEO methods into your current strategy, it’s best to request an SEO scan . This will allow you to assess the SEO health of your pages and identify potential opportunities for your business.
Get your free SEO scan
Learn About Voice SEO
Make your digital assistant your best friend. Have him or her do some fun little tasks:
- Searching for specific information. Think of things like finding directions, a restaurant’s hours, or a nearby parking lot. For example, do you want to know where to find the best pizza in Belgium, or which garden center is open on Sundays so you can pick up some new plants?
- Got a long drive ahead of you? Ask Spotify to put together a fun playlist for your kids. Or maybe you’d rather listen to the latest Rammstein song—whatever suits you.
- Have you ignored the beeping of your parking sensor a few times and now need roadside assistance? Your digital assistant will figure it out for you.
How Voice Search Works
With voice search, you can easily find information by talking to your laptop, tablet, smartphone, or speaker—all of which are equipped with voice recognition. Users don’t type their search terms into their device. No, they ask their question (yep, a full question) to their voice assistant, which then provides them with an appropriate answer.
Devices with digital assistants use voice technology to convert spoken words into a specific search query. Using algorithms, the software searches for the most relevant answer. By focusing on voice SEO, you can improve the content on your pages, helping them rank higher in these voice search queries.
Feel free to compare voice search with traditional text-based searches, but be aware of some major differences in how they work.
Differences Between Text Search and Voice Search
To help you understand why voice SEO requires a different approach than traditional SEO, we’d like to explain the differences between the two:
Text Search
- Focus on short search terms consisting of just a few words
- Search intent isn’t always immediately clear
- Available only by typing on a physical device
- Clear distinction between sponsored and non-sponsored results
- As a user, you decide for yourself which site to click on. If you don’t like the content, you can simply move on to the next page.
Voice Search
- Long-tail search queries using complete sentences
- The user’s search intent is immediately clear: for example, to find information or to make a purchase
- Available while driving via hands-free use
- No distinction between paid and unpaid search results
- The digital assistant chooses which result to present to you. You’ll only hear “the best” result.
Voice SEO Is Changing Search Engine Optimization
A different way of working, a different approach. Voice search only works on perfectly optimized sites. That’s because the search query doesn’t consist of clear words, but of spoken sentences. Help the search engine by laying a solid foundation:
- Have a website built and make sure you start with a solid foundation for your technical SEO. Pages with slow loading speeds or insecure URLs are definitely not eligible to appear as results for voice search queries.
- Set up a clear SEO architecture for your website and ensure your metadata is correct. This will give Google a structured overview of your pages.
- Voice SEO gives you clear insight into your users’ search intent. Understand why potential visitors are searching for something and tailor your content accordingly.
- First and foremost, focus on writing SEO-optimized content that is clear and addresses your user’s search intent. The digital assistant typically pulls information from the search engine’s featured snippets—the highlighted text excerpts from one of the top search results.
- Incorporate long-tail keywords into your content. With voice search, search queries tend to consist of phrases rather than individual words.
- While driving, it’s best to keep your eyes on the road and receive information only through spoken words. Optimize your images for SEO. After all, search engines don’t see images—they read them.
- Create a page with FAQs and include them in your structured data. Here, provide brief, concrete answers to frequently asked questions. That way, Google can immediately find the information it needs without having to sift through all your detailed posts.
Focus on Google Local Voice Search
You’re out exploring the city, your stomach is growling, and you’re really craving some vegan food. But you don’t know your way around this city, and you have no idea what vegan restaurants are in the area. Local voice search to the rescue. Activate your digital assistant and ask it where you can find the best vegan food spot in your neighborhood. Set a route and enjoy your meal.
Are you the owner of a vegan restaurant? If so, you’d love to be recommended to hungry and lost souls. But how do you make sure Google ranks your page as the most relevant?
- Focus on your user’s search intent.
- Focus on writing helpful content.
- Make sure you have a solid content cluster. That way, not only will your visitors fully understand what content is on your website, but Google will also love this clear overview.
Learn all about local SEO and reap all the benefits for your business.
The Future of Voice SEO
Advances in AI and other machine learning technologies mean that voice assistants are constantly getting better at understanding and responding to voice search queries. So companies would be wise to focus on voice SEO—not just today, but tomorrow and the day after as well. Businesses that are trying to attract customers to a physical location, in particular, benefit from this approach. By responding to their users’ search intent, they provide the perfect answer to their query. Google rewards companies that provide users with a relevant answer by giving them a higher ranking in search results.
Focus on other SEO tools first
The use of voice search is on the rise due to the emergence of smart devices. As a business, you’d be wise to focus on long-tail keywords, local SEO, and content designed to provide answers. This will boost your visibility to voice assistants and increase the likelihood that Google will feature your page to answer a specific question.
At the moment, companies aren’t actively using voice SEO. We can’t stress this enough: with a good SEO strategy ( which includes voice SEO), you’ll always come out ahead in the long run.
“Hey Google, which SEO agency can answer all my questions?”
